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I would like to express my frustration that limited watering for food is lumped in with not rinsing your boat or bike, not filling your hot tub or pool, and not washing your windows or showering outside, and other perfectly reasonable water saving measures. How are these unnecessary tasks even remotely comparable to limited (very) watering of a food garden that has been grown and tended for months? I mulch, I have buckets in my sinks and shower, I follow the guidelines on hand-watering only, I have long-drained the three water barrels I have on my property, I have resigned to the fact I am going to lose ornamental trees, shrubs, and flowers, but now it seems I will also have to let my food garden die. 

I fully understand we are in a crisis, and that watering must be restricted, but it makes no sense to have the hand watering of food gardens -- not to mention the locally adapted seeds that could be saved from these gardens -- on the prohibited list. There are so few vegetable gardens in Tofino, that it seems unreasonable to punish them in light of the myriad ways water flows through this community and down the drain." 

The response from Aaron and the panel as to why they included not watering food was a bit unclear to me. It sounds like it's just what they've always done and it wasn't thought through all that much, but reading between the lines, I think they will reconsider this next year. At least I hope they do. 

In my research, I found that Cowichan Regional District, Lake Cowichan, Parksville/ Nanoose, and Courtenay/Comox all allow for limited watering of food in Stage 3. Usually this means handwatering (i.e., a hose you can shut off) for 2-4 hours per day, for a couple of days a week. There are variations, but it's generally that. With the exception of Courtenay/Comox watering of food is also allowed in Stage 4, but of course, with fewer hours/days. 

Other concerns:

I'm on the board of the Tofino Community Food Initiative, which does all of the fundraising and maintenance of the school garden (we have one part-time employee that we also pay for entirely, but otherwise it's run by the kids and volunteers, including a seniors group). Now, after pretty much the entire year of planting and tending that garden, it's left to its own devices. We've done what we can -- filling barrels, mulching the hell out of it, and starting to triage what lives and dies. While I realize it was a tossed out comment at the end of a long and stressful night, I was very offended when it was suggested that maybe home gardeners and even the school garden could use a fog harp or some such to collect water, like we can suddenly conjure the money for something like that (setting aside whether it would even work). We have some water barrels, but they are inadequate (and two of them leak) and, well, see above re. volunteers and money. 

I am mostly venting and do hope they'll come to their senses. Honestly, for the few food gardeners in this town -- there must be more hot tubs than home food gardens -- it seems ridiculous that we can't tend the food we've been growing—and watering!—for the year. What a waste, and so contradictory to the council's professed concern for food security.

Thanks for giving everyone a platform to connect about this serious issue. 

Some key points I took home; 

The existing infrastructure relies too heavily on consistent rainfall, and is at risk of failing in a drought like we are experiencing.

The Sharp Creek Dam and the Ahmaksis reservoir can not be built up to store sufficient water to get us through more than just several days of Tofino's summertime water use. 

Going into the townhall I thought that they could.

With this and future drought in mind, I strongly feel that the district has to look away from the existing infrastructure, and find an area that will permit mass storage ie. Kennedy Lake.

An engineer from Koer's and Associates who was extensively involved in our water system after the town shut down in 2006, as well as the current engineer, seem to agree that a large body of water would provide the best long term solution for us. 

The meeting was however meant to focus conservation efforts, rather than how we prevent this from happening again. 

Larger storage will no doubt take time and money.

Until we get to that point, our current system will require mindful water use and conservation efforts by everyone to get through the dry months.

It was a surprise to learn that residential use and cermaq are the heaviest burdens on the Tofino  water system. 

I thought that the hotels would be larger users than the homes. 

Although it wasn't clearly stated, I have no doubt that short term rentals are a large contributor to residential use.

It was also interesting that showers and flushing the toilet are the two largest residential uses of our potable water. 

Why do we flush our toilets with drinking water during times of drought?

I rely on a short term rental to keep up with my escalating mortgage and property tax expenses. It's an awkward thing to have to ask visitors who I charge a high nightly fee to minimize their water use.

Given the situation, there is no choice.

This can be done in a kind way, focusing on the term conservation rather than restriction, asking folks to use grey water for flushing toilets, to keep showers short, to keep the tap off when brushing teeth, and to buy drinking water.

We are also asking visitors to follow the district on social media to get the latest info on the water situation.

More information on how the district manages the big businesses like Cermaq who are using so much water would be welcome.

I hope there is another meeting  which allows for community input into the future planning for Tofino's water infrastructure. 

There are still some stark differences between Tofino and Cape Town, but after seeing South Africa in 2017, and seeing a city of 4million people counting down till the water ran out, water security has been at the forefront of my mind.
When the water levels got so low that taps were being shut off or simply stopped flowing, I came to the conclusion that some water is better than none, and using it wisely can make it go much further.
I'll never forget what it feels like to have almost no fresh water for hundreds of miles around, just two oceans, and desalination as the only option.

Tofino will get rain, we need to store it better, and until we figure that out we have to use our current resource wisely.

Here are some of my thoughts after watching and trying to listen to portions of the zoom meeting.

Overall, I found the audio challenging but my O.L.D. syndrome doesn't help, but it is better to be "hard of hearing" than "hard of listening" which seems to affect some folks in the district of Tofino.

Our mayor, CAO and public works and infrastructure guru should pay heed and listen old time local people [elders] , they provide much needed historical perspective or at least listen to them when they notice a new or long standing water leak....or you could just hire a consultant or at least teach a district worker how to use fluorescein dye to easily find leaks.

There seemed to be lots of talk about what has been done since 2006 and how we are now waiting for a water management plan??

Here is my simple person water management plan

-INCREASE storage capacity [think water storage tanks, prairie style reservoir dugouts, mountain snowmaking reservoirs]

- stand-alone neighbourhood storage tanks for fire protection

-spend less on consultants and use the money for actual physical water infrastructure improvements

-yearly rainfall of 10’

-25 x 25 caretaker cottage roof potential rainwater capture 50 thousand gallons

-STR/ VR/hotel business license must have rainwater capture for 20% of needs [hot tub, recreational rinsing etc]

- new construction grey water recovery plumbing for toilets and plant watering

-sandpoint wells where possible for avid gardeners

-large commercial water users can pay for their own desalination plant

We as a community should be embarrassed, we have an abundance of water' we don't have a water shortage, we have a shortage of water storage and a shortage of effective decision making since the water crisis of 2006.

What has the PVTL or C and I tax actually done since it was implemented? maybe some large storage tanks should have been on the shopping list.

Look south down the road to our friends in Ukee, are they in a similar situation?

This is not an emergency or due to drought or climate change, we are where we are because we are not RESILIENT! Plan for the future, plan for emergencies like the submarine pipe from Meares Island rupturing or a large fire or other critical infrastructure catastrophes.

The silver lining in the nonexistent rain cloud is that there has been a decrease in visitation/tourism which I think does reduce water use even though DoT numbers don't seem to reflect this but they do historically have a poor record of reading water meters. The other "reduced water use" factor are the denizens of underhoused workers residing in recreational vehicles throughout town, anyone who has lived in a "camp situation" is keenly aware of conserving water.

I was put off when, at the start we were told by Nyla what we could talk about (conservation) and what we couldn’t (storage), since storage was listed in the advert for the meeting in the first two bullet points:

Tofino’s water infrastructure

Tofino’s plans to expand water service to the community

Storage is part of infrastructure and water service cannot be expanded without increased storage, so why were we forbidden to talk about it?

As far as conservation, given that water is already so expensive most people I know are pretty judicious about how much they use at any time, let alone during a dry summer. Really, what else is there to talk about? My wife already has ice cream buckets in the shower and in the sink and has been using that and captured rainwater on her garden even before the level 3 thing.

Also not impressed with blaming climate change and the current drought for our pickle, like this situation is some kind of surprise. Droughts happen periodically, regardless and we should have been prepared when we got our wakeup call in 2006. It has been nearly 18 years since then and now we have many more people than in 2006, so any drought, climate change or no, is going to have a greater effect on our water supply unless we expand storage. This is not a surprise; we have been talking about it the whole time, yet nothing has been done.

Also, while upgrading community infrastructure is important, putting that work ahead of storage upgrades is poor planning. Of course we need both, but if the dam fails or dries up it doesn’t matter if the pipes are all new and leak free! Likewise with the sewage plant. It won’t operate without water!

I was happy to hear that we are going to see some planning re expanding our water sources by December, but I have to ask why this has taken nearly 18 years and how much longer it will take before anything actually happens at our reservoirs? I realize that most of the current council is relatively new, as are some of the staff, but the DOT staff leadership has been around for quite a while and they are the ones who are supposed to be doing the work of giving options to council. Why the 18 year delay? 

I was glad that we didn’t have a panic mode meeting and the current photos of the reservoirs were a good idea to show that we were still getting good flow rates and to stop the rumours that water was no longer flowing over the top of the dam.

Oh yeah, the new (to me) staff guy sitting next to Aaron seemed pretty sensible and I was glad to hear from him that increased storage was indeed on the table. I just hope that this doesn’t mean more years of costly studies that lead right back to another meeting like this again with no change in our situation.

I guess the question is: What can we (RPA) do to push the district to move ahead expeditiously on storage expansion? I think we at least need to keep pushing the DOT staff and council, reminding them about the promised report on storage upgrades as we move into the Fall.

Overall impression --- the staff seemed well out of their comfort zone both in the presentation and in answering questions. I left wondering if they have the expertise/ experience to solve the water problem.

1. mr. rogers accidentally confessed to public works fixing yet a 3rd leak in the marine pipeline from meares. 

2. mr. rogers assertion that there were no leaks in the water tanks is untrue.....and the mayor sat there in silence after having been taken up there last week and shown the leak in DL 117 tank. not much integrity mayor law.

3. being shown the little bit of overflow from sharp creek dam may have been from monday morning after a brief rain. this is disingenuous if so. why cant we see this on a daily basis?

4. ginnard creek dam this morning is not overflowing despite the insinuation that both dams were overflowing.

5. i was left with the impression the there was no need to worry. go to sleep little babies. the political solution was well underway. no need to curtail water use except for the residential taxpayers. and if we went to stage 4 it was our fault.

6. no need to shut off the docks where numerous boats are washed every day with potable water.

7. cermac would get around to stopping processing the first week in august.

8. and finally the district will get around to investigating leaks and handing out fliers next week. no rush. 

thank you

jim

Additional comments. 

1. It didn’t seem to me that there was a back up plan to investigate the feasibility of tanking in water.

2. There was no back up plan.

3. We were on our own if the district ran out of water.

4. Many people Who are familiar with the water situation would like to see a daily tally of our water use consumption so we know if we’re doing better or worse. The district knows but will not share that number so us taxpayers are supposed to rely on the district to supply all the information?

5. The district is woefully unsharing of information.

My impression was that the District has good oversight over what we have now but absolutely no vision for water supply for the future . Just maintaining and repairing seems to be the priority. I realize that governments have put a lot of money into our infrastructure, I.e. Sewer upgrade . 

Gibson BROS have been saying for years the need to expand the existing reservoirs and that it can be done economically. 

I think our local tax dollars will be tapped out paying for this new sewer system so I am not sure where we will acquire new revenue streams . 

How about if any new or existing resorts want to upgrade or build , they will have to invest in a new water project as a yearly investment to the community. I don’t care if resorts all set up a fund separate from the municipality so that they can have a say in what happens , as long as some sort of revenue strategy is in play for the water system . 

No one time fee ,this has to be ongoing in order to maintain for the long run . 

If they have money to expand or build , they can support the local people and build a future for us . 

I think the meeting was held where it was so that information could be said to have been delivered.

There was no concern for the public being able to understand or learn from attending or viewing on Zoom.

It was all a charade.

Aaron spoke softly and so fast so that there was no thinking time for those to process what he had said and be able to ask questions.

Perfect bafflegab,

The standard MO for government officials.

On top of that the sound was unintelligble. 

It could not be heard in the district council chambers,

It could not be heard in the theatre.

It could not be heard on Zoom according to someone who tried to attend that way.

It was not my hearing. 

Others were giving up in disgust as well.

I asked in the council chambers to please speak up because they could not be heard in the theatre.

Aaron Rodgers kept speaking softly and made no effort I could hear to speak louder or more clearly,

I left as the meeting was useless.

I was not the only person to leave. 

The video repeatedly cut out in the theatre and the sound was even worse than in the council chambers.

In both locations the sound was like being under water and deeper underwater in the theatre.

I firmly believe that this was part of a planned reduction in public input.

I wanted to ask if the district when it drilled two wells back in the 1990’s that came up effectively dry had used a water witch before drilling. 

Given the 1 and 2 gallon per minute water flows It would seem they did not. 

A water witch for those who have not seen one at work can by dousing accurately find water, its depth under ground and flow rate prior to drilling, 

If you are drilling for a lot of water you would not drill in that location. Even just a couple of meters away you could hit water.

Hiring a water witch is not a great expense compare to drilling a hole and coming up dry.

I know of a well in town producing 40 gallons a minute of perfectly potable water. No treatment needed though as an extra precaution they filter it.

According to the well drillers at the time, there was a flow of fresh water underground beneath Tofino from the north to the south,

With several good wells our water supply issues could be over.

The least that could be done to increase our water supply is for the hiring of a water witch to explore district lands for their water potential. 

Somebody in town may have those needed skills and could, who knows, even offer them for free.

Sorry, no I don’t have dousing skills.

Please ask around. 

Someone you know may have the skill.

I wanted to ask if with all the changes in the maintenance department, the water collection galleries on Meares had been cleaned.

I wanted to ask if the Sharp Creek dam face has been resurfaced yet.

I wanted to ask when the underwater pipeline from Meares island was being replaced

But I left.

Oh and one caveat to drilling for our water supply is that water flows from wells can change after earthquakes but dams and storage can also fail.

Another potential source of water in the town is one that has been forgotten.

Centennial Creek downstream of First Street has a damaged dam on it and used to supply the town with water through a 6” inside wooden pipe wrapped with wire which was pumped to a storage tank on the high ground of Katie Monk Park.

There is still some piping visible there should one care to look.

I am not suggesting Centennial Creek for regular drinking but if the reservoir was cleaned out of its silt, it could be available for people to obtain drinking water in an emergency, filtered and boiled.

It could also be used for a supply of gardening water and keeping the town’s park vegetation alive. I would estimate the volume of water that could be stored there possibly would exceed the town water tower on Barrs Mountain.

I think it could also be used for fire prevention purposes.

I looked at the traffic backed up from Industrial way and decided was not worth the wait, so watched online after the fact and am glad I did as was able to fast forward thru the monotonous parts of the meeting. 

My only suggestion for the DOT on this is communication of daily usage vs target so that users can see the impact of their water conservation efforts – I did see a chart showing daily usage buried deep in the DOT website, this is something that should be displayed on the home page and probably should be printouts at Post Office, COOP and other public places and media.

  I'd like to expand on what I said at the meeting.. in short, the town has put an unfair load of the costs on the taxpayers while the rich resorts and businesses are getting a subsidized ride. The example of the new water rates which is supposed to pay for sewer upkeep and infrastructure shows that the residents are still paying more per gallon for their water than the commercial.  Increasing all users by a fixed percentage doesn't change that. Saying that Commercial will pay at least half the costs doesn't change that since they use a lot more than the residents. As the new rates (effective July1 2023) chart shows, Residents pay $3.42/m3 water and 3.08 sewer at max rate. However the Commercial pay only $1.59 water in winter and 2.19 summers,  and 1.43 winter and 1.98 summers in sewer - and they use that rate much more than residents. I was told at the meeting that they intend to change that next year... meanwhile we shower by standing in buckets to save water and the tourists feel free to shower boats, cars, wetsuits etc as they like... The resorts are able to put in storage tanks and can also collect massive amounts of rainwater if they want... but whats the incentive? They are already getting a cut rate on water! If the rate would be high enough after the first threshold and kept increasing massively  (like BCHydro does)  they would have a really good and adequate motivator to invest in these things. As things stand now, they don't. And also if the rates were high enough we would be able to use that money to help pay for the sewer treatment plant debt and ease the burden on the taxpayers..  
 

To see the new rates scroll down to the Downloads in this section and click on District of Tofino Utility Notice: Utility Rate Change--Effective July 1, 2023